


Drowning His Sorrows

by TandemTypewriter



Category: One Piece
Genre: Acceptance, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alcohol-Induced Dreaming, Anger, Bargaining, Denial, Depression, Drinking to Cope, F/M, Five Stages of Grief, Grief Is Hitting Rayleigh HARD, Mentioned Akagami no Shanks | Red-Haired Shanks, Mentioned Buggy the Clown, Mentioned Crocus, Mentioned Oden, Mentioned Pedro, Mentioned Portgas D. Rouge, Mentioned Scopper Gaban, Mentioned Whitebeard, Rayleigh Needs Help, Rayleigh is Depressed, Rayleigh's Drunk, Roger and Rayleigh Were The Best Bros, coming to terms, he does get better
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:28:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28498326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TandemTypewriter/pseuds/TandemTypewriter
Summary: Rayleigh wasn’t in Roguetown when his Captain was executed. Instead, he was in Sabaody, sitting at the bar with Shakky threatening to cut him off for the 110th time. He figured he could find Roger at the bottom of a bottle. After one drink too many, he found himself sitting in a boat with a scrappy, smiling rookie pirate with a familiar straw hat asking him where they were…but Rayleigh didn’t know either.Rayleigh, coming to terms with Roger’s fate.
Relationships: Gol D. Roger/Portgas D. Rouge, Silvers Rayleigh/Shakky
Kudos: 6





	1. Drowning His Sorrows

**Author's Note:**

> You don't sail with someone for over twenty years and not feel something hard when you lose them. The manga and anime touch on Rayleigh's feelings of loss without his captain, but what about the initial feelings of helplessness and eventual aftermath of Roger's death? This fic is this author's attempt at just that!
> 
> A belated birthday to the Pirate King Gol D. Roger and Portgas D. Ace!!

“A toast…to the longest reign of the Pirate King. May the next generation join us in Hell.”

With his shot glass raised high, Rayleigh gulped down his drink in a second. The burning liquid swashed in his mouth and throat, filling him with another sense of joy. He was drunk, but he didn’t care. As he reached for the bottle, he heard Shakky sigh, her eyes giving a look he was familiar with. She wanted to cut him off and she often did so when he drank too much, but this time…it was a different situation. This wasn’t a party or cool-down from being hunted by the Navy. It was a time of grieving.

It was written by the papers and passed around the whole world: Gol D. Roger had been executed.

The King of the Pirates, Captain of the Roger Pirates and a devil of a shipmate, was dead. He couldn’t help but laugh when he read that the Navy foresaw an increase in piracy the likes of which the Marines never saw before. Roger’s words of finding his treasure had tempted those with greed, curiosity, and chaotic energy. It was going to be another era of piracy and Rayleigh wished he had a clearer head to see it for himself. His words were just beginning to slur, and he felt it was the right time to stop, but he saw his hand pouring another shot to drink. He couldn’t stop. He didn’t want to stop. He wanted to drink and toast to better days than this.

The crew he grew up with, his family, were gone. Those involved with the Roger Pirates were being rounded up, punished or in hiding. He heard that Crocus was taking care of a whale. Scopper was going to set sail on his own in hopes of finding some peace after the disbandment. Shanks moved back to the West Blue to find a crew of his own and Buggy was somewhere only God knew of. He didn’t know about the others, their whereabouts or if they were still alive. It had only been a few months since they split up but for Rayleigh, it felt like it was only yesterday. He couldn’t understand why they left for good. They were all good together, like meat and rum, drinking and gambling, adventure and freedom…

All of which was taken away the moment Roger turned himself in.

Rayleigh didn’t want to admit that when he read the paper, he thought it was an elaborate hoax, but seeing the dying smile of the dead Captain on the front page… He just sat down and began to toast to every member the Roger Pirates had, even those whose journey was short. After ending with Roger, Shakky had suggested he stopped but he kept giving toasts until the bottle poured its last drop. She really tried to cut him off, but after threatening her with tearing down her precious Rip-Off Bar, the owner relented and allowed him to drink himself into a stupor. In-between the sips and curses, Rayleigh felt sick with what had happened. A crew disbanded, adventure over and his Captain killed by some lowly Marines for the world to see. It wasn’t fair. With another gulp, he slammed his head down to rest the upcoming headache from his self-destructive behavior. He heard Shakky telling him that she was taking the bottle away until he comes around. He thinks that won’t happen for a long time.

With his eyes closing, he figured an alcohol-induced rest was coming up. Rayleigh didn’t want to wake up to a hunched body, so he tried to stretch his legs out from his seat while putting one of his hands behind his head in case Shakky wanted to strike him awake for sleeping at the counter. He didn’t care what her fading regulars thought; let a lying man rest. He took to his slumber, ignoring his headache, his pain and memories of his dead Captain on his last days… Rayleigh wanted out of this. He wanted to just go somewhere far to where his troubles wouldn’t find him. To better days that had the crew laughing and smiling at their latest exploits. To the day his house burnt down and sent his soul on a chain reaction of destiny with his future Captain. The moment he heard a shout of surprise about the vessel he stole…

…The waves sloshing around them, trying to mess up the rowing to whatever destination Roger had “instinct” of going to but didn’t really know. Bobbing up and down, side to side…Rayleigh felt a little nauseous. Perhaps he downed one shot too many and was going to have apologize to Shakky for making a mess on her floor. He felt like hacking up his stomach but couldn’t find anything inside. It was a foreign, almost faded feeling. When he looked up to see if Shakky was going to say “I told you so”, she was gone and so was the bar. Rayleigh’s eyes found himself surrounded by fog under the stars if he had to guess from the lack of natural light…and he was in a small sailboat. To his right was the ocean and to his left was the sea that carried him. What was happening? When he looked up, all he saw was a sky of evening fog and when he craned his head down to look in front of him, he lost the instinct to breathe.

A young man, wearing a straw hat, blue pants and an open black shirt was staring out into the clouded horizon.


	2. Denial

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rayleigh doesn't know what to make of seeing a ghost from a time when he was wild and young.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When a tragedy strikes, we often wish it didn't happen or pretend that it wasn't severe toward us. But the pain still reels from time to time.

Rayleigh couldn’t move, his body reclining against the interior of the ship that he stole… What sort of drink did he take? The small boat he had been resting on had sunken to the sea years ago, with Roger crying out that she had gotten them through a lot of their journey and even managed to get them into the Grand Line for a while. They were near another island and managed to get another ship, but he’d never forget the Viking Funeral Roger gave to it as it began to take on water. After that, they agreed a Shipwright was needed to continue their voyage and found one before the next time their ship started taking serious damage. The vessel itself was supposed to be gone and as for the person looking over the railing to find land in the dense fog…they looked like…

“…R…Roger?” he asked, feeling the color drain from his face the second the individual turned around. A mess of jet-black hair that was topped by a familiar straw hat, piercing brown eyes that stared into the deepest depths of those around him, a smile that gave many confidence in achieving the impossible and that laugh… “ **BWA-HA-HAHAHA!!** So, you’ve finally come around, Rayleigh?! You sure know how to down your booze!! Save me a glass next time, huh?! Or better yet, a barrel!!” It was Gol D. Roger talking to him, acting as if they had just started their trip to sail the Grand Line. He looked as young as the day they met. It was impossible! What was going on?!

“…I think I drank too much,” he spoke, holding his head as the boat continued to rock back and forth along the waves that carried them. Roger cocked his head and walked to the down man with a what looked like concern. “If you’re sick, we should probably find a doctor… Do you have any idea where we’re sailing…?” his smile returned and in an instant, the fog began to clear, “…’cause I have **no idea!! HAHAHA!!”** Typical Roger, laughing off the danger and worry. Rayleigh recalled they met Crocus at Reverse Mountain few islands later with a pod of whales he once tried to hunt for sport, only to lose to the baby that bit him. It took a lot of convincing to get him to join and even more to convince Roger **not** to have the whales join them across the Grand Line.

“I’m good,” he lied. The pain in his body was fleeting, but his head… This was impossible. Their adventure was over. The boat was gone, and Roger was dead. He was supposed to be dead and forgotten by the world, but he had no intention of doing so. His words set everyone into finding his lost treasure and was now responsible for starting the Golden Era of Pirates. Rayleigh tried to stand but only managed to readjust his body to sitting up instead of lying down. He saw the sails and blowing with the fog that ensnared them. It felt so real. From the wooden finish of the railing to the flask he had in his other hand, it felt as though he had traveled back in time to the good old days when they were just exploring the waters and seeking fortune.

Days before their final journey to Laugh Tale, before his sickness drove him to recklessness, before he decided to leave them all behind and give the biggest middle finger to the Navy that thought killing him in public was a good idea.

Roger took off his cap and scratched his head before saying, “If you’re sure, then how about we decide what we should do when we reach landfall. You know, besides giving the Marines Hell.” His vendetta against the Navy had something to do with Garp. Rayleigh never asked him what made him decide to give the old man a headache, but they met the Captain many times on their voyage. He was a determinator to catch Roger and those times were often when Roger was destructive to the point of making his ships sink to the bottom of the ocean. Perhaps it was because Garp represented order and following one single path, something that Roger despised with a passion. If anything, being a Marine and the law meant to have your freedom stripped away and obeying orders from someone else. Roger wasn’t a follower and he hardly listened to anyone… even when it seemed impossible to accomplish.

Denial was a powerful thing and Rayleigh couldn’t help but feel that Roger experienced that feeling for a long time, even when they met in Roguetown years ago. He didn’t want to follow the path of the law, he didn’t want to believe his crew would perish among the waves, and he refused to die by a battle or sickness that plagued his body for who knows how long. If Roger didn’t want to abide by anything by flat-out denying everything that some saw as an eventuality, then maybe Rayleigh was the same way.

Roger didn’t die. He wasn’t sick. He wasn’t sick at all.

A sudden cough emitted through the air, only for the blonde man to find that Roger was coughing into the sea. Holding onto his hat, the young Captain finished with a spit of red into the ocean and with that done, he settled back into his spot opposite of his First Mate while taking a few looks to the sides of their bobbing vessel. Rayleigh couldn’t believe what he just saw. Did that happen in the past? Were the signs there and he missed them? It was incurable, but maybe—no, Roger wasn’t sick. He never got sick. Himself, Crocus and Buggy more often than Shanks took ill, but their Captain never did. **Never.** That never happened. That didn’t just happen. Sickness never took him. Death didn’t take him away.

**“Rayleigh!! Land ho!!”**

The blonde man shot up from his seat and saw an island in the distance, its windmills spinning peacefully with several boats already docked at the harbor. By instinct, Rayleigh grabbed the oars and started rowing toward the landmass while Roger jumped in anticipation of seeing what lied ahead of them. His form slightly deflated when he saw that there wasn’t a Marine Base but perked up upon the sight of several jolly roger flags fluttering around the ships that overshadowed their boat. “This place is perfect for finding some recruits for our crew!! Let’s get a move on!!” Rayleigh rowed as fast as he could, but the sudden increase of waves became difficult to overpower.

It was as if the island was growing farther away and the fog was beginning to come back. No matter how hard he rowed, they wouldn’t reach the destination Roger saw. He felt tired, wanting to sleep from all the revelations of seeing his friend before him, but didn’t want to think it had been a dream. Rayleigh’s eyes grew heavy and before he knew it, his body went to sleep but not before he heard Roger shout in a joyous tone, “What did I tell you, Rayleigh? This is the beginning of the greatest adventure ever known!”

‘But when,’ he thought, darkness overtaking his senses, ‘…when did you decide to leave all of us…?’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I like to think that Rayleigh blamed a little bit of Roger's circumstance on himself; if you had noticed something was amiss with your friend, would you say something?

**Author's Note:**

> There are moments in the series where the grief is shown in the Straw Hats, the families they love, and the people in the world that were hurt by the enemy or circumstances that led to each Arc of the story. Silvers Rayleigh is also one of them.


End file.
